The relationship of school type and gender to motives for sport participation among youth in the People's Republic of China

One unique aspect of the youth sport climate in the People's Republic of China is the existence of spare-time sport schools, in which children train for elite sport competition as part of their school day. Yet very little is known about the motives of these young athletes for sport participation as compared with those of their peers in the normal school structure. The purpose of the present study was to compare the sport-related participation motives of youth attending both types of schools. The sample was comprised of 465 youth including both spare-time sport school (n = 208) and normal school (n = 257) males (n = 261) and females (n = 204) between the ages of 7 and 17 years (X = 15.6 years). Subjects responded to a demographic questionnaire and a culturally modified version of Gill, Gross, and Huddleston's (1983) Paticipation Motivation Inventory (PMI-C). A factor analysis utilizing the PMI-C responses resulted in ten interpretable factors: competence/competition, fun/excitement, team orientation, fitness, energy release, social activity, frienship, future career pursuits, family influence, and achievement/rewards. The results of a 2 × 2 (School Type by Gender) multivariate analysis of variance using these factor scores showed significant main effects for school type, F(10,394) = 27.54, p <.001, and gender, F(10,394) = 4.89), p <.001.